: : : : : My son has been taking Ritalin for 6 mos. He started at 10 mg and is now at 20 mg. We have not seen any improvement at all. In fact, his behavior at school is much worse to the point of being out of control. We have tried everything - reward, punish, organizational help, etc. for several years at our at our wits end. What is a typical dose for stimulants? Should we be looking at other medications? I've heard that a lot of the other medications cause so many side effects and that some require regular monitoring of vital statistics? Any advice?

: : : : I tried my daughter on Ritalin 3 different times hoping it would work better as she got older. It did not. Some kids just cannot take Ritalin. When my daughter had Ritalin, she became a very angry little girl- the littlest things set her off. She was much harder for me to deal with on Ritalin than without Ritalin. She is on adderall now and doing remarkable. Ask your MD to try adderall- it lasts 5-7 hours and there are no side effects.

: : : A word of caution regarding Theresa's post. She mentions that adderall has no side effects and this is not true. It has fewer side effects than most ADD drugs but still has some.

: : very true about the side effects- my daughter does not have any side effects, but that doesn't mean there aren't any- I should have clarified that- sorry.: hello, the least side affect is dextrostat for adhd people, my son takes this and i have done alot of research on this and my doctor also had said the same that it is the least side affact and he is doing very well on this, ritalin is also from the family of cocain to let you know ask your doctor and research it and you will see.: take care and good luck.

My son, who is now 12, has been taking ritalin for over 4 years. He's been taking 2 20mg SL and 1 mg. in the a.m. and then 1 10mg in the afternoon for a total of 60 mg. per day. He's a different child when on the medication. If I forget to give him his med, teachers can tell; I can tell; his brothers can tell. I know there's a great controversy about this medication and I do believe that in many cases it's prescribed unnecessarily (i.e., for "bad" behavior). However, in my son's case it has helped tremendously.